A training program was conducted by Athena Infonomics on the 8th of October, 2018 in Chennai for IAdapt Project Partners on the Decision Support Tool (DST) being developed under the IDRC supported IAdapt project to facilitate and support local governments and catchment managers to make climate informed decision for sustainable water management.

 The tool will be tested in the project cities to prioritise climate adaptive water management projects and disseminated after fine tuning. 

The training program was attended by all project partners (ICLEI SA, IITM, IWMI Sri Lanka and Athena Infonomics) to discuss the DST framework and to present project progress in Solapur and Vijayawada cities.

Athena Infonomics presented the DST structure and WEAP model outputs for Vijayawada. The partners discussed the importance of customising the model for each city catchment (Solapur and Vijayawada) and discuss the methodology to prioritise interventions in the catchment areas.

All partners travelled to Vijayawada, one of the IAdapt project cities, for the micro-catchment visit on the 9th of October, 2018. Stakeholder discussions were conducted during the site visit in Jakkulenekkelam village in Gannavaram Mandal (Taluka) to understand the issues and challenges in water management and to understand the project activities being implemented in the micro catchment.

Meetings with Mr. D. Chandrasekhar, Additional Commissioner, Vijayawada Municipal Corporation and Mr. G.V Suryanaraya, District Officer, District Water Management Agency, Vijayawada were conducted to discuss challenges in water management and potential policy solutions to boost levels of integration in the catchment (rural and urban).

The team visited the water treatment plant (WTP) and SCADA center at KL Rao Head Water Works in Vijayawada city. A visit was also conducted to one of the Sewerage Treatment Plant (STP) in Ajith Singh Nagar, Vijayawada.